Instructions for me coming to you; written on my palm

You will be in the nice guy business but find yourself bankrupt in the friend category. It will be time to start over, to start a new venture, to wrangle a new deal. You will rent a U-haul and pack up your life in moldy liquor boxes, your dogs in crates stuffed with pepperoni--only their noses will be visible. There will be doubt and a tad of guilt because you are after all “the nice guy.” Let this pass. You were never that nice anyway. You were just putting on a show to get into their pants.

On the morning of your departure you will unroll the scroll you keep behind your ear. Yes! The one with HER phone number on it. You will phone and let her know in uncertain terms that you are on your way. She will express surprise and claim that leaving her husband isn’t possible. You will laugh like you’re mad because well, you are. You will not be mad at the world though just at yourself when you remember in Pittsburgh that you left the coffee maker on. You will not turn around and your home will burn. You will not go back and will drive straight through to North Carolina and in the bathroom of an all night gas and fried chicken emporium you will meet the ghost of John Ross after having smoked a peace pipe packed with funny tobacco. You will offer the great Indian chief a ride and he will cling to your luggage rack, the feathers of his headdress pulling out and creating a trail that will replace the one constructed of tears many years earlier. He will get off in Oklahoma at a Wal-Mart where he will take a job working at minimum wage.

Your trip will be filled with adventure and heart ache--too many things to list. Fast forward. When you finally arrive at her doorstep her husband will answer the door. He will swing and punch at your teeth but you will be agile enough to hop onto the lattice and avoid his hand. You will scale the side of the house and on the third floor she will be waiting. Her head will be sticking out of the window and your first thought will be that it is a float that has escaped the Macy’s Day Parade. Something is awry. You will pull a scale from your backpack and ask her to step aboard. She does so and the needle sticks at 110 lbs. A light bulb goes on. Somewhere a crow is electrocuted on a power line and falls into the bed of a passing truck in which the ghost of John Ross, having quit his job, is sitting. He catches the crow. He kisses the crow. The crow comes to life and tap dance like Fred Astaire on the cab of the truck.

You remove a needle from your travel sewing kit, and poke her in her melon like cheek. The escaping hot air blinds you and you fall back off the lattice and into the arms of John Ross who is standing in the front yard. Hot air, he will say, she was full of it. We both got screwed, you will say. He will nod and you will eat crow in a tangy lemon sauce that night over a campfire on a west coast beach.